It’s the end of summer here and I sit outside for a few minutes with the two dogs and fondle their ears. There is usually something to find, burs and stickers mostly. Blood? Not so much. I know what this means without knowing the whole story. First blood could be one of a very few perpetrators, but this blood presents only as a clue. Before I put them in the back pasture and before I make the early morning rounds of the chickens and the ducks, I need to walk the near earth and discover who did what to who.

Feathers. Outside the goose pen gate. White feathers, scattered about, mostly the little fluffy ones. The geese count three and look in good shape. Another pile. Not white. An attack pile away from the others, towards the Americana chickens in Coop 5. Not good. I thought never opened it yesterday, so I didn’t bother going up and closing it last night. This is the source of the blood. But Big Syndee wouldn’t be the culprit. She doesn’t kill my chickens. Her chickens. But she’ll accept an invitation to a free meal.

The other one. Smaller, pure white Sydnee, she would do this. But she couldn’t. Not reasonably. Yesterday, when we went out in the afternoon, I had closed the pasture gates. I know because I had to open them…very early this morning. The dogs were barking. I got up and went out to see. I opened the gates and walked back…nothing to see. Something had happened or was happening, and the dogs ran to it. Now, with the light, I could see what that something was.

A sinking feeling came over me as I walked further back to Coop 5. Where were the chickens? I saw that the little coop door was left open. There were no chickens behind the water tank where they usually congregated. None either among the high weeds and reeds that cloaked the fenced in chicken yard. Nor in the fence enclosed chicken run which protected Coop 5. Looking through the wire into the coop I didn’t see a single bird. Last hope, I went around to external nest boxes to see who might be laying eggs. I unlatched the door to the first set of four boxes. Nadda. Then the second. No luck. With a sickness at the bottom of my stomach I started to accept that whatever happened, all of my Coop 5 chickens were gone. In one night.

Yesterday, one of my hens, Barbara Boxer, got trapped in one of those twelve inch plastic milk carton cubes that was sitting out. You know, the ones you buy at Target for storage purposes. Anyway, I discovered this in the afternoon when I went out in the humidity to check on the sweaty livestock. I heard frantic cackling. I saw curious interest. My chicken killer puppy Sydnee probed that black plastic upside-down container. Something moved inside the makeshift cage. Chapter II of “Chickens knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it”. Chapter LXVI of farmer playing god and reaching down from people heaven and lifting the cursed carton. A seeming miracle to the Godless chickens. A continuing wonder to the amused farmer. A constant reminder that farmer incompetence trumps barnyard stupidity. When will they learn. When will they ever learn.

Don’t know much about how poor Barbara Boxer got boxed in. Don’t know if that is the end of her woes, but probably not. I do know that she is not unique among chickens or other life when it comes to getting boxed in by her own actions and needing a seeming miracle to get out. I was there but if not, death was certain. The actual box of chicken fiasco opened me up to the hypothetical box of human humility each of us has experienced, escaped, and then been re-trapped within. Pick from life’s realities, any of life’s challenging realities, and you will be able to assemble a box from which you seemingly can not escape… without a miracle. Even though you always do. But one day your luck may run out. Someday your wits won’t be enough. Your family and friends may not be able to lift the increasingly heavier box off. What should you be doing if you are now or have been trapped in a box consisting of a job too consuming, a partner too demanding, finances too over whelming? I don’t know. But do something to escape the “box-on-box-off” cycle.

Having been within the walls and ceiling of the job-marriage-employment box, I have been trapped in more than once. I remember some one reaching down and saving me – once. I remember reaching up and saving myself – once. In both cases it was important for me to understand how I got boxed in. It was important to accept that I had the biggest hand in building the box that so imprisoned me. It was more important that I did not allow myself to let that same box to surround me again. I think I have been successful but boxes come in a great many deceptive forms these days and there is no end to the creative ways in which the crafty human can construct his own prison. Ok, so when one finally finds oneself trapped by the walls of self destruction, what are the steps to getting out?

First – what happened? Finances, affiliations, frustration will weigh heavily but unless you understand your circumstances you may make things worse by choosing quick action or slow denial. Find a sound sounding board. Put your worries on the shelf until they can properly and orderly be consumed. Maybe speculating the worst can help with putting your best foot forward. Perhaps saying some things out loud can advise you on your necessities. Never let a contrarian in the room – this brings doom. Get yourself a straight shooter to keep you on the path. Always put your concerns in an important/urgent grid which allows you to label each as important/urgent (!), important/not urgent, not important/not urgent, and NOT IMPORTANT/URGENT (!!!).

The blind pedestrian walks to work on the highway shoulder during rush hour because of the urgency of the job, not the importance his life. The beleaguered parent watches the world series on a school night because of the importance of escape, not because of urgency. The jobless breadwinner worries about the urgency of the family vacation, not the importance of getting a job. Walls are built by current urgency. They are knocked down with the acknowledgement and action on future importance. Let go of the immediate curiosity and get a hold future reality. Dream on but don’t fantasize. Unless you are still a child, you should not look outside yourself for rescue. Even though it can happen and inspire wonder, it should not be your fallback plan. But what do you do if your best isn’t good enough?

Think! You have to decide what you want before you can decide what you want to do. Balance your life. Be honest with yourself. Shed the things that don’t do you no good. Usually nagging thoughts should be addressed. When your unconscious comes knocking, let her in. She, your unconscious, will not harm you. That’s a start. You, your conscious you, has a bad reputation. Like a manipulative friend, his inspirations go awry. His motives are the kind that don’t do you no good. Use evidence, reason, logic, self-preservation if necessary but get out of the box on your own power. Get into the groove of self-reliance and intuition by acting responsibly, confidently, and slowly. That’s the ticket. Who will notice?

Everyone. Once you can not be easily influenced, lots of people will go away. Others will attack. Some will come towards you. Those are the ones you want in your inner circle. Losing friends isn’t always a bad thing. Being alone can sometimes be a good thing. A dedicated relationship is better than Facebook full of Friends. Unfriend those who have not proven to be friends. Reach out to those who are worthy to be friends. Never seek to go below or above the level of relationship that costs you self-esteem. Empower yourself using the means that work for you. Pray. Read. Converse. Listen. Meditate. Cry. Laugh. Find out who you are on your terms without having those terms dictated to you. So much of is out of power can be brought into your hands by simply reaching out. Getting out. Looking within.

Yesterday evening, Friday, we arrived back at Sawmyl Synders Farm and one dog greeted us, Syndee, the big Anatolian. No Sydnee, little Akbash. We unloaded the truck and entered the cabin I restrained Syndee from accosting my wife. I looked around. I called. I listened. It was dark. There was no Sydnee. I went back in and got one of my newly purchased mini-flashlights. No need. With the other lights that come on at night, easy to see a pure white puppy even on a perfectly black night. The pup just out of sight back near the garden and the coops. But she didn’t greet me. Something was awry. Something was dead.

Sydnee finally did it. She let her instincts and nature take over. And now the worst thing, the most nightmarish thing had happened. Laying in the grass, lifeless, an animal killed by its protector. An eight week old poulet in the jaws of a four month old guardian dog. The little chick was too small to survive its first day outside, having escaped its protective coop. The young puppy, too young to know the consequences of going too far with its animal antics. The master of both too inept to secure the chicken run against the escape or anticipate the horror of a confrontation with his beloved charges. The guilty must be dealt with.

A chicken killing dog must be stopped, no matter young or old, no matter if it is the first time. But first, what happened? I wanted to let my maturing poulets out of their 8X8 Coop III but the attached chicken run had unrepaired damage from the May floods and also the since departed billy goat. I inspected the run closely two days ago and made the repairs yesterday. The repairs consisted of holes torn in the chicken wire, separation of chicken wire from fence and fence panels, and movement of panels from their prior attached positions. I spent an hour and thought I was thorough. The poulets were released and reluctantly explored the outdoors, safely in the fully enclosed chicken run. I checked on them several times that afternoon. I put a waterer in the chicken yard to encourage their adventuring. All was well, until the night.

Just when you turn your back. Just when you let your guard down. Just when you think it is safe. The puppy is a guardian as much as it is predator. A friend can be trusted but he also must be watched. The needy must be given generosity but their desperation often exceeds their gratitude. Just as I have faith that my dogs will do their duty, I must also remember their nature. Just as I trust in my friends, I must remember that they are not family. Just as I want to give to the needy, neither do I want to be taken. Each encounter has a double edge. Each edge has the ability to heal as well as cut. Do not fall asleep expecting either health or harm. Do wake up to the possibilities of both from those you choose to allow in your circle.

On Monday, I discovered one of my Cornish Rocks with a string wrapped around one leg. That discarded eighteen inch piece of string belonged to a feed bag and attached to a length of wire which the unlucky chicken dragged around the otherwise sparsely furnished chicken coop. This unfortunate circumstance happened several days earlier. How do I know this? My little chicken, now Chicken Little, grew half the size of the other thirteen coop-mates. Chicken Little’s right legged extended straight out from her feathered frame due to dragging the mass. Even though the leg could be flexed, after removing the drag, CL could still not walk properly. The mishap injured her and crippled her. I pray she recovers but I doubt she will. So who is responsible for the crippled chicken?

In my earlier blogs I have besmirched poultry, really all birds, as “bird brains”. Knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it. Also, in another blog, I assumed that my chickens knew what they were doing when it came to birthing before finding a dead chick in the nest box. Who is responsible for the chickens? Who is responsible for the dangerous debris littering the coops and the grounds? Who makes assumptions? The chickens? No. Of course it is the clueless farmer. Yeah, the one over there with the big brain and bushel of assumptions. The one holding a crippled Cornish Rock in one hand and a dead Buff Orpington chick in the other. The one making judgements about those under his care and now facing judgement for his lack of care. Recommendation? Cleanup, shut-up, and be a farmer not a philosopher.

I stated last Sunday that I blogged for a hobby, blogged about how my farm animals knew how to get into trouble but never knew how to get out which closely paralleled my own conundrums. This chick-caught-on-a-string-and-wire episode sits as a good example. Months ago, I accepted an invitation to a gathering with pleasure. Weeks ago, I realized the reason for the invitation with apprehension. Days ago, I accepted my financial obligation with trepidation. Now, I lay here along side my crippled chick, tangled up in a situation, dragging an unwanted responsibility, and fearing that I will never be quite the fully functioning believer that I was before I got entangled.

Just as I am responsible for removing the hazards to my farm animal and rescuing them when they get into trouble, so also am I responsible for removing hazards to myself and for extricating my limbs from the tangles of life and the people in my life. Don’t say yes so easily to strangers, it is a steep slope. Question the details of what you are getting into before getting into it. If money or time is involved, gather enough information so that you can set a limit. Even though charity should be unbound generosity, in reality it can become unbound avarice. The meek can become predatory if you allow yourself to become prey. Your donation can become robbery if you never stop and say nay. It is better to stop giving in time than to stop giving altogether.

Barnyard birds get into trouble. The trouble farmer gets them out. Today, ten birds crowded the small isolation coop meant for the six gift hens given by the neighbors. Six buxom buff orpingtons joined four golden sex-links. Golden girls. Farmer Drew Goode knew not how they got into this once-thought-secure coop. And those golden girls didn’t know how to get out. No matter how they cooed and cackled the gateway to freedom did not open. No matter their pained pleas, the resident rooster didn’t come to the ready rescue. The harried hens knew how to get into trouble. But they couldn’t, never could, never will figure a way out.

It isn’t that all blondes are dumb, not even in the chicken world. But at least these blondes, the golden sex-link hens, have an excuse. Their brain size compares to a dime, though they have slightly more sense. Early in the week, the fatigued farmer saw Tom turkey roaming outside the turkey trot fence. Not a complete shock. When all of the turkeys were younger and more svelte, they were constantly escaping the four foot fencing, flying sometimes thirty feet in the air. With age and sage, they stuck to the muck of their enclosure, occasionally escape escapades tolerated. This rare bird broach by big bird required human intervention (open the gate, kick the bird towards it while fending on the guardian dogs). Soon secured, Tom said nothing about how or why he sought trouble. The dumb animal, somewhere in his little bird brain, got high on the rescue.

Birds aren’t the only creatures that can’t find their way out of a paper bag, let alone a cardboard box. Not to labor the dumb blonde sex-links, but one of these cuties found her way into a discarded cardboard box the other day. Old Goode two-shoes heard some strange clatter as he pronounced his morning chicken chores of fooding and watering. Thud-scratch-clat-clat-clat! What could it be? A little silence and focus led dense Drew to the chicken size box on the nearby bench. Sure enough, the terror to all head-first-entering beasts – a door that opens to the inside. Once the chicken pushed into the box to see if there was anything to eat – it became a trap – and escape could only be accomplished by a reluctant benefactor. Benefactors, though only appreciated at the point of rescue, benefit us all at one time or another in our recurring dead-ends in life.

The moral to the story might be that birdbrains and geniuses both find their way into trouble. Without a benefactor, one might get stuck. Without luck, one might succumb to a bad actor. Sometimes one has claw their way out. Other times one must stay and fight and adapt to the new environment.

Today I found a fully feathered chick – in the nest box of a broody hen among a dozen unhatched egg – DEAD. Eyes pecked out. Not the original broody hen on the eggs at the time. I assumed the hens knew what they were doing broody. I assumed the hens were looking out for chick life among themselves and no harm would come to the new born poulet. I assumed I knew something that I had no reason to believe. Feeling naive? For sure. Feeling stupid? Not any more than usual as a novice farmer. To blame? Who else? Stepping back, my fallacy of assumptions, good intentions, and experience with bad debtors, I seem to have built a wall which blocks my vision of reality. Is this a bad thing? Whether good or bad, I probably won’t shed my myopic visions of the world to save my life.

Look around me
I can see my life before me

Yesterday, I collected a debt. Well, I collected the majority of it. Actually, someone else, a debt collector friend, collected the partial debt for me. The debtor confected a sweet story, believed by my friend, which had me saying that I would contact the debtor about the repayment. Not true. Has this happened to you? The debtor needed something – six months ago. The eventual debt collector referred that person to me. I willingly became the benefactor. But once the kindest was afforded, I unknowingly became responsible for resolving the debt. If someone does not value your relationship, that person will not honor their debts incurred. I learned again the lesson I should have already memorized.

Running rings around the way it used to be

Bad debts, partial payment, lost relationships scatter my past even as my experience with them has enriched my life with unintended wisdom about the way things used to be.

I am older now
I have more than what I wanted
But I wish that I had started long before I did

Early in the week, I encountered some known acquaintances who I intended to help financially. They certainly needed it. I could afford it. What could go wrong? I don’t mind a little manipulation for a good cause. I have more than what I wanted…these people have less than they need. I know that entry into heaven can be influenced on goodness, even though I don’t believe in heaven. I know that the path to hell is paved with greed and selfishness, even though I don’t believe in hell. I also now know the feeling of when I don’t want to do something. This feeling came over me as my good intentions were being manipulated thin by the recipients of my generosity and I felt unintended responsibilities were being piled on. Soon my financial obligation, already hundred’s of dollars, grew to double. I sought council and found resolve. However, the manipulation resumed the next afternoon. I have little experience with philanthropy because for most of my life I had so little. Now I know philanthropy’s steep slope, hard for the novice to avoid, with total abuse being the abyss.

And there’s so much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way

A friend in need is a friend indeed, so goes a proverb. My closest friends, I always assumed, experienced my loyalty. My old buddy benefited from my friendship on many occasions, yet on many occasions he did not fulfill his assumed commitment to me. Didn’t show. Didn’t call. Didn’t answer the phone, text, or email. Didn’t care. My old work colleague of nearly twenty years wore his lack of reciprocity with honor. He never returned a favor. Never repaid a debt. Never spoke well of me to others in person or behind my back. My old best friend could call me at any time and for any reason and I would be there for him. This would be true of him toward me when I was in need. Until the last five years or more. Just when I needed help most, he did not show. He did not respond to his own commitment to come over when I flooded this spring and I lost everything.

So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

I secretly estranged myself from my-former-best-friend way before the flood. I’ll say that life caused him to become loony and lost. My contacts with him were to sit while he worked on his “zingers” to sling at me. My widely spaced visits to his house were merely welfare checks, the best part – leaving. The contagious insanity in that monstrous house infected my inoffensive demeanor. Now, I got rid of him (from my conscious life) but he still haunts my unconscious. Unaware he lost a loyal old friend – in the depths and tangles of his new found insanity.

Oh, when you were young
Did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve

As a young one leaving home, I realized something wasn’t right. I knew I had to get out of that place to find the answers. I got out but I didn’t find any answers. I found more questions. More pain. But at least I was living in reality if not acknowledging it. I envied many but found, eventually, that they were also full of unanswered questions about relationships, desire, and flaws in human nature. I realize that I must state what I want. But with age, the sand runs faster and the formula for life seems buried. With regard to human nature, I now give people reduced expectation. With my own myopia, I must cut through the myth mist. Be more realistic.

Look around you now
You must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved

I remember what House MD had to say about “deserve”: “People don’t get what they deserve. They just get what they get. There’s nothing any of us can do about it.” I left home but I never wanted anything but out. I probably thought I deserved something. I didn’t know what it was. I certainly didn’t get it. However, now I have much. In the form of my children and grandchildren. Those who had much back then, have much less here and now. My family doesn’t cringe when I approach. I don’t fabricate the past to justify the present. I don’t explain a lifetime doing honest work for felonious clients. I didn’t expose family to felons (or their future felonious ferals) on vacations. I didn’t hook up with a female felon for future years. I didn’t get what I deserve but the one’s who got the good stuff early and through stealth, get other stuff late and through just deserts.

So much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

I waste no time trying to change the past. Yes, most of my years were spent in fear, isolation, and sadness. No, I don’t have the power to change any of that. I wasted time but now it’s over. My life being over blesses someone who never comprehended my purpose anyway. Life flows like water under the bridge. I’ll never get back what I allowed to be taken from me or what I have freely given away. Bad debts, good intentions, and naive assumptions litter everyone’s path. Better to let them be carried away than bitter to sit beside them.

Today, I can turn in every direction – past, present, and future – and see something unseen before. Partly because savage summer now submits to humane autumn. Particularly because infernal rain invites eternal sunshine. Pleasantly because transitory impasse submits slowly to incremental improvement. The reasons? Out there, as ever. As before, I stop, take notice. Never before, did I think of companions and rain, freedom and weeds, as ends in themselves, let alone beginnings. Happiness awaits. She does not pursue you. Nor you her. She waits for you to be…

Biting is good. Eating poop is good. Jumping on a sleeping dog is good. It’s all good if you are a two-month-old Akbash puppy relocating from Whirlaway Farms in Caldwell, Texas to Sawmyl Synders Farm in Magnolia, Texas. Who could be happier? Definitely Syndee, an eighteen-month-old Anatolian Shepherd livestock guardian dog. She lost her charge when the May floods carried her boar goat buddies away on fast moving muddy water. She wandered the abandoned Capra confines and broken fence line of former goat pasture. She slept long and sullen afternoons until, suddenly Sydnee, the Akbash pup arrived bright eyed and – you know. At first the towering, older Syndee growled. She foamed. Only later did we discover she had been stung or stuck. Something swelled, a salivary gland, soaking everything, a viscous slobber spill. Now canine Mutt & Jeff explore the wondrous goat shelter, fascinate the fence line, and snore long satisfying siestas (a trait Syndee picked up this summer). The new pup purchase quickened the old resident guardian, she learns new tricks from the frisky female partner. At first, the more mature Syndee, must have thought, “I’d rather be gored by a Boer, literally. I’d prefer the wrath of a rooster, occasionally. I’d accept the company of my master, reluctantly. Anything but this pest.” Now she’s feeling it. “Now we be sisters. Now we couldn’t ask for more. Now we’re 100 times happier!”

May 26th, 2016 brought a good day to a bad end for Sawmyl Synders Farm. In two hours of early evening, a freak storm raised the slumbering creek twenty feet and gathered human hopes into it’s new reach. The little house on the pasture never saw it coming. The smaller goat shelter surrendered its loved ones to the cruel invasion. Seventy hens and roosters climbed and crowded up the seven foot roosts in their appointed coops where only twenty could be accommodated. All of this rolled off the backs of the ducks and geese… They were 100 times happier! From muddy duck muck to rushing water – Splash Town! Tide and torrent beating bills and quills – fowl heaven. To bring a duck delight, spray it. To give a goose glee, flood it. The farmer in his pickup at the end of the driveway, looked in the rear view mirror, watching the tragedy in reverse. The dog in the seat along side, watched her master. Outside, scattered light caught the current, barely communicating that the brown flow overtook the peak of the duck house. The waterfowl wondered what great deed they had done to deserve this gift from heaven. One man’s misery is a fowl’s fortune, or so say the ducks and geese. Their duck yard mates – The turkeys – did not squabble. While Sawmyl Synders Farm rues that day, for the water birds, that day rules. Remembered with fowl bliss. Happier. Much.

Chickens don’t know much but they know what they like. They don’t like being cooped up. They don’t like a diet of dry pellets and wet piss-like water. They don’t like that anytime bids bed time and everyday echoes the same. But after the flood the surviving soaked hens forced some adjustments. First, because of the flood waters, the captives still in the coops couldn’t leave. The outcasts outside the coops couldn’t enter. The guardian dog – gone. The protective farmer – here – but only from crowing sun up to sinister sun down. Predators – all present and preying at sundown. Two-thirds of the birds were lost to the flood waters. Next, the predators took advantage of coops damaged and blocked up by tree trunks to decimate the dwindled flock. Depressed, lethargic and alone, the lone farmer sweated several days, chaining trees and removing debris, and securing sad coops. Death suffocated continually the already stifling air. More than a month moaned by before the farm fences stood relatively restored and the growling guardian dog reinstated. The chickens remained restrained, restricted to their caged in run. The grounds outside, soon overgrown, a future green feast for these prisoners of water. The bountiful bugs, the multiplying maggots, the gutted garden created a cornucopia for these birds on the run and their wanton appetites. Released into this mini-jungle, my hens foraged, 100 times happier. What else could they want? A rooster. So they clucked incomplete…until two months later the yellow young devil moved in – Pac-Man. A gift from a family that keeps chickens as pets. Pets with names. Pac-Man. This Buff Orpington orphan found a home at Sawmyl Synders when it was discovered at a home in a restricted city sub-division. He won twenty hens hearts – only after pinning the first three macho hens to the ground who challenged. A foxy male in the hen house. Now the girls cackle exponentially happier.

Life makes happiness. The living make it continue. A pile of poop, a fast flood, or the slow caress of a fawning beak – each with possibility. Getting another guardian dog for a farm that had nothing left to guard? Could it make ME happier? What other wonder hath God wrought? The muddy duck yard grew verdant, with rich sediment infusing the fowl residence; a thick salad for summer’s feasting. So where have the piles and deposits left me. With apprehension abated. With disaster at ease. With calm on the creek. I added forty fluffy pullet chicks to my rinsed off brooders. Happiness has its moments and its seasons and its sorrows. Moments have their lightening and their breadth. Seasons infinitely cycle and influence our happiness quotient but they should never take complete control, no matter their power. These animals ask for little but return great things. The openness to being content, satisfied, and happy serves as the greatest gift. Last May, a flood loomed not possible. That flood created an opportunity in its pool. Now, there lives more potential than before…to be happy.